Friday, March 28, 2008

My mouth is dry and eyes bouncy. Breathing is often interrupted these last few days by a ragged cough.My week of work and community service both have felt like rolling a boulder up a mountain but there is a sense of irony that maybe this boulder is deflecting and protecting me from debris.Sustainability is the word of the week, ‘reasonable need’ the concept and ‘Why?’ the eternal question. Joni Mitchell singing Big Yellow Taxi [@1970] ‘paved paradise and put up a parking lot’ the instant replay of my fatigued mind.

Words of the past somehow get through the mire:I read a poem written about my 1970 world-view and I post it as if new – out in the world. I realize I am pushing this symbolic boulder in anticipation that others may find fulfillment if I can help keep the door to free speech and art is kept ajar open in my home town.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

This question How Can Right - Be So Wrong? was raised into consciousness a few times this week. Once in good storytelling: The movie ‘Gone Baby Gone’,A few times, during recent citizen advocacy challenges,And daily in the balance of ‘work’ and ‘life’. When faced with the consequences of action taken 'on principle' can we find our core values in conflict? Is it merely a question of their priority?

Core values are to govern how we make decisions, clarify who we are and guide our behavior in the world. When compromised ‘who we are’, changes.

Frustration with processes that sometimes take years to complete or maybe even re-cycle often seem better served with short-term solutions.Short-term goals are needed for process owner sanity, life-cycle and knowledge management. However, short-term should still be compatible with the long view.

If the foundation is broken it is better to clear and rebuild than selectively modify.Determining how broke is broke needs consensus.And in the politics of change, power brokers will identify small fixes that cater to the short-term needs of a few making consensus even more challenging.

Political Power is best served by an 'informed' electorate and a demonstration of the will of that electorate for a common good. Education on this process is challenging as well and I was please to find this site that is trying to meet those challenges.

The informing quote of the week: learn that you can disagree with people without being disagreeable. Source: Grover Norquist, President, Americans for Tax Reform

Saturday, March 8, 2008

I, ..., current Chairman of the Cable Advisory Council Comcast Branford and Statewide Video Council designee; DO NOT SUPPORT HB5814, An Act Concerning Community Access Television. [I do however support Community Access TV in to the wee hours of the morning.]

As an advocate of Community Access Television for 30 years, I wish I had the opportunity to either support the repeal Public Act. 07-253 or support a bill that better defines funds and enables Community Access. Neither option is available in this short session. The outgrowth of inquiries on how to fix, what PA 07-253 broke, seems to have become an opportunity to further codify the limitations of ‘video’ services as acceptable and to dismiss some significant regulatory outcome of DPUC proceedings of the past few years.

I have submitted a list of concerns with this Bill and Pubic Act 07-253 and share this adaptation of FCC Commissioner Copps’ remarks on ‘Localism in Broadcasting’ as it could pertain to Community Access.

We are making George Orwell proud. We claim to be giving Community Access a shot in the arm — but the real effect is to reduce access to a deep link in a world wide web of glib marketing campaigns, high priced attorneys and competition for ‘the tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to see the TV of their choice for a price they can afford.

We do this upon concluding many things: 1) localism is the cornerstone of our regulation 2) communities need access to valuable, locally responsive programming, 3) there is a presumptive need for communities to have community channels, 4) the flexibility of digital technology can ‘better serve’ the needs of the underserved 5) Community Advisory Boards are not conclusively a means of addressing local needs, unless they are representatives of all segments of the community, 6) periodic consultation is appropriate, and finally, 7) modification of certain rules, policies and practices may be necessary.Reform is needed. But to paraphrase Rep. Fontana’s recent remarks about SB492: Do we need a chain-saw to cut through the complexity of this bill? Does it establish a level playing field, provide transparency and is it responsiveness to the public? I believe not.

~~~More than a decade has passed since PA 95-150 ensured that all communities in CT would have Community Access otherwise known as P.E.G., Public Education and Government Access. This Access legislation was unprecedented in its provision to serve all residents of our State. Communities and providers had choices to make based on each community’s definition of reasonable need. A variety of community access operations across the state were transformed. Some are thriving, most are surviving, and all are at a digital crossroads. Many are trying to balance the day-to-day demands of keeping speech free and accessible to all on shoe-string budgets while keeping one eye on the preservation of the rights of those they are trying to serve. PA 07-253 Concerns:

Complexity of language in new law

Too many terms for carrier/distributors of TV

Opportunity to update and simplify language not taken

Complexity of multiple mandatory advisory councils and lack of clarity of roles

Lack of community representation in community advisory selection

Video provider is not required to provide a basic service

Video provider exempt from interconnection/start-up costs

Video provider exempt from provision of senior discounts,

Video provider technology limitations may not enable retransmission from all PEG locations

Cable opt out does not grandfather provisions of most recent franchise agreement

All language appears to lead back to FCC minimum channel capacity and funding

Cable Council funding remains same rate after a decade

Lessons Learned from mandated consumer studies and surveys not leveraged

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Virtual Inspiration

Quotes that got my attention

Albert Einstein said "“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Response: Finding the crack to let the light come in may be harder than we can anticipate. Try Harder.

Sociologist Barbara Katz Rothman term is “incapacitating knowledge” for the technology enabled avalanche of non-stop information that often makes life seem more complicated and disturbing than it already is.

Response: Find Trusted Curators, Brain Train with exposure to art and consider the value of your own contributions to the avalanche.

Response: Sometime wins are hard to recognize until much time has past so lessen the anxiety with a realistic timeline, too.

Albert Einstein said "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Response: For me, everyday is finding the balance.

Albert Einstein said "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Response: Silence, Judge within me.

George Elliot ( of whom I wrote my Senior High English paper to the dismay of the teacher expecting T.S. Elliot) It is never too late to be who you might have been.

Victor Frankl (College Sociology 100) What man actually needs is not a tensionless state, but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

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